E-mentoring and novice teachers’ professional development: Program design and critical success factors
Abstract: In recent years, e-mentoring has received increased interest with regards to teachers’ professional development, since it offers new possibilities for teacher support and guidance from distance that overcome space and time constraints. It is also expected that e-mentoring creates an open, flexible, supportive and reflective environment for teachers collective development. This paper presents the design and the implementation of an e-mentoring program for primary education teachers with low teaching experience, which lasted eleven weeks. Eight mentors with high teaching experience and enhanced qualifications, provided guidance and support to eighteen in-service teachers. The whole initiative was supported by e-learning methods through Elgg on-line platform. Qualitative data were collected through interviews conducted with both, mentors and protégés, three weeks after the e-mentoring program was completed. The analysis of the results revealed important information regarding the design of e-mentoring programs, as well as the critical factors that facilitate active participation and interaction among participants.
Presider: Athanassios Jimoyiannis, University of Peloponesse